TIE Archer
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Designed to take on smaller enemy capital ships when an Imperial cruiser is unavailable, the TIE Archer was one of the Empire’s more successful answers to the New Republic’s B-wing heavy bomber. The Archer is heavily armed, lightning fast and is equipped with both a shield system and a hyperdrive. Of course, such performance comes at a cost. The Archer is extremely expensive to build and maintain, and uses parts that are not common among other TIE variants. Most fleets can only afford to keep a single squadron of Archers running at any one time. The Archer is also notoriously difficult to handle and is usually reserved only for those pilots who have survived a tour of duty in both the TIE Interceptor and TIE Defender, or who show an inherent aptitude for combat. Unlike most TIEs in the Imperial fleet, the Archer is a two-man fighter with a pilot and a navigational officer seated in separate pods within the Archer’s elongated cockpit. In an emergency, however, the Archer can be operated by a single pilot. The large solar panel to the rear of the cockpit appends those on the wings, allowing the collection of more usable solar energy needed to produce the Archer’s high performance rating.
Introduced approximately ten years after the Battle of Yavin, the early Archers saw extensive, though limited, action throughout much of the Imperial-controlled galaxy as well as participation in sorties into New Republic held space. During the waning days of the Empire, an Archer squadron was generally relegated to defense duties around key Imperial stronghold worlds. After the Empire‘s armistice with the New Republic, most Archer squadrons had been retired in an attempt to cut costs and their ships were mothballed, but a few elite squadrons were still active around worlds such as Bastion. During the Yuuzhan Vong War, the Archer was reinstated back into Imperial service and proved an astoundingly effective defense against the bizarre alien invaders despite the TIE’s limited numbers. After the war, the remaining Archers were once again retired and now play a mostly ceremonial role.
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